


sehnsucht

by vounoura



Series: knife wife and staff loser [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: F/F, Pining, hi my name is Saern and I'm incapable of writing wish-fufillment wholesome things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 00:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13178031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vounoura/pseuds/vounoura
Summary: She wants to reach across the table and kiss her, but she doesn't.





	sehnsucht

**Author's Note:**

> me, emerging from the grave: here I am, back on my bullshit

She stares insistently at the curve of her lips from the other side of the table, and is suddenly assaulted by a disconcerting _need_ and an _urge_ to kiss her.  
  
She _wants_ to kiss her, here and now, regardless of who’s watching, but she doesn’t.  
  
_It’s funny_ , Nirasa thinks, nursing a cup of Cyrodillic wine (she’d prefer something more native to Morrowind, but mazte and sujamma are hard things to find on the Gold Coast), how Naryu is a woman born and made from contradiction. A woman of calloused fingers ( _made only to hold knives_ , she had joked once, and Nirasa wonders if she has sharpened her fear and pain enough that Naryu will consider holding her too) and roughened palms, but also a woman of fine hair and (she assumes) softer lips.  
  
(Not _delicate_ , no - Nirasa will never use that descriptor on the woman sitting only a scant few inches away, but there is something about her that fascinates the mage. Perhaps it is the dichotomy between _soft_ and _hard_ , between _danger_ and _safety,_ between _hard edges_ and _soft curves_ -  
  
Or perhaps she’s just a pretty face to a woman with a weakness for pretty faces.)  
  
She wants to reach out, to feel the texture of another’s skin or the strands of soft hair between her fingers, but she doesn’t. There’s a lot of that, these days; stronger and stronger _urges_ and _needs_ whispered into her mind by some invisible, life-destroying daedra or something.  
  
(Naryu is saying something, but Nirasa isn’t listening, too enamored with the way her lips curve and form each letter and sound and word that makes its way out of her mouth. Naryu’s voice washes over her like a wave, settling deep in her chest with a pleasant, yet alarming, warmth.  
  
It’s alarming, yes, but not entirely unwelcome. But Nirasa isn’t quite ready to confront what that warmth means, and so pushes it to the back of her mind and tries to ignore the way it begins to settle in her ears instead.)  
  
They are ignored, of course - because if there’s anything the ‘Pact’s Greatest Idiot’ is good at, it’s ignoring and outright defying the demands of powers greater than her.  
  
(Ignoring it is simple, easy, and practiced. Admitting to greater things requires a level of introspection and acceptance neither of them have yet.)  
  
But the urge remains. _Reach out and kiss her_ , the voice whispers, and she even feels her fingers twitch before she clenches them so hard her nails bite deep into her skin, placing them firmly into her lap. A lip sneaks its way into her mouth to be bitten at, but she stops that as well until she fidgets so much that even Naryu stops to ask if she's alright.

( _No_ , she thinks, _never around you._ )

She laughs it off, of course, because _lying_ and _acting_ is a practiced skill that the Pact's greatest hero is good at. The bitterness of the wine burns away the shame of her lies as she sips from the cup.

 _Reach across the table and kiss her_ , the voice whispers, and her only answer is _not now_.

**Author's Note:**

> sehnsucht: 'the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what'; a high degree of intense, recurring, and often painful desire for something, particularly if there's no hope to attain the desired or when its attainment is uncertain, still far away.


End file.
